Category Archives: Blog/Journal

Whether you were a postal star and smashed our Month of Letters Challenge, or you felt fortunate enough to find a group of people who have a passion for paper mail, the LetterMo Postmasters would like to thank you for your participation in this year’s challenge! We especially appreciate all of the patience and support you’ve expressed for the maiden voyage of the new team. Thank you!

But wait! There’s more!

While the “mail at least one item through the post every day it runs” part of our challenge has come to an end, the second part of the challenge is still very much at hand: “answering everyone who wrote to you.”

It’s time to March On!

March On Lettermo Badge

What awaits you at the end of the March On rainbow, you might ask? Another excuse to write letters, of course!

In 2001, the USPS expanded their letterwriting week campaign to include the entire month of April. Various mail-centric blogs and entities have also taken up the call (such as Crane stationers, check back in April) as well as the folks over at Hallmark. We know that Write_On began gearing up for their April challenge in January. Watch their blog for fun mail items and connections to other folks offering content and enticements about letter writing.

Your LetterMo Postmasters aren’t going anywhere. We will continue to be active in our Facebook Communities, look after the forums, and like all your beautiful happy mail and artistic creations on Instagram, plus sharing all the fun and inspiring ideas we can find to help you keep your mailbox (and the mailboxes of others) happy.

I had thought to post something today about love and Valentine’s Day, but such a posting seems frivolous and disrespectful in light of the horrendous school shooting in Parkland, Florida.* I hope that soon we’ll learn to love each other enough to stop this violence.

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I usually try to keep my posts fairly light, but today I want to address a fairly serious topic: how to write letters that confront loss and sorrow. Condolence letters are rough to write and often rough to read. A friend of mine who lost a parent found she couldn’t even break the seal on most of the notes she received. But sympathy card and letters often do bring real comfort to the bereaved, sometimes not right away, but months or even years later. When I was seventeen, I went to visit my grandparents in New Jersey. I arrived the day a distant member of the family had his funeral, and that night I went with my grandparents to sit shiva with the family. During the course of the evening, one of my great uncles took me aside and told me (at great length) how, when his wife had died some years back, my mother had written him a long, beautiful letter about his wife. The letter, he told me, captured Aunt Bert’s spirit and described all her wonderful qualities so that he felt his wife was always close to him. The letter meant so much to him that he had it framed and hung it on his wall where he could see it every day.*

As with any type of writing, knowing your audience and respecting the kind of relationship you have with the recipient of your note are key. When writing to a non-intimate acquaintance

(such as a co-worker) who is grieving, it’s usually best to come up with a version of “I’m sorry for your loss.” Anything more extensive than that is likely to feel like an intrusion.

Date

Dear Ms. Saunders,

I was sorry to hear that your mother passed away. I remember meeting her once when she came by to have lunch with you. She seemed like a lovely person. Allow me to offer you my

Genuine sympathy,Bob Milne

What one might write should also depend on what one knows of the deceased. If you knew the deceased well, a memory or story that the family might like to keep can be a great gift.

Date

Dear Rebecca,

It is so hard to believe that Saul is not longer with us. He had such a calm and steadying personality. Remember that time we were all at the lake and the kids found the puppy with the broken leg? Sammy was howling louder than the dog, but Saul reassured him as he splinted the pup’s leg and wrapped the dog in a blanket. The whole way to the vet’s office Saul kept both kids and canine soothed with that low voice of his. And when no one claimed the dog, Saul just brought her back without thinking twice and made her part of the family. He did that for a lot of people too, including

Your friend,Michal

Offer to help — but only if you really can follow through and if you won’t be hurt by a refusal.

Sensitive condolence letters are often marked by what they don’t say. If you aren’t sure, don’t write that the deceased will be missed terribly. Unless you know the religious beliefs of the bereaved very well, don’t offer comfort out of your own faith. Avoid recounting the stories of your own losses; the letter should focus on the recipient’s pain. Especially when the loss is fresh, don’t pressure the mourner to find comfort. Anyone who has been loved deserves some pain and tears. Don’t add anything chatty; the note should be about the deceased or the loss to the reader only. Death is a time to be classy and formal, to lean on ritual and formulae. There are exceptions, of course, but unless you’re sure that deviating from the verbal rituals of grieving will be welcome, dress your letter in the accepted trappings of mourning.

In the face of a death, I think of Emily Dickinson and her poem that I’ll let close this post:

This is the Hour of Lead –Remembered, if outlived,As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go – **

Ruth

Ruth Feiertag is the owner of PenKnife Writing and Editorial Services (http://www.penknife-editing.net), the Senior Editor for Regal House Publishing (https://regalhousepublishing.com), and an independent scholar who writes about Medieval and Early Modern English Literature.

(This one’s for my dad, d. 2007, but keenly missed and never forgotten.)

————————————————

* When I got home, I told my mother this story and she burst out laughing. It turned out that when her mother died, my great-uncle had written her a letter that read,

Here we are, about to launch another Month of Letters. For the first time, we are setting sail with a new captain (or two), and we owe a shipload of gratitude to Cooksterz and Ronda for taking the helm. But I want to dedicate this post to Mary Robinette Kowal, the one who built the boat and took us on as crew. It’s been a marvelous voyage so far and we’ll keep cruising through these Februaries, thanks to Mary, who is still providing us all with her support and the means to keep the site and community viable and vibrant.

~~~

My Great-Aunt Lillie was a champion of the thank-you note. She expected us to have one in the mail the moment her letter or parcel was relinquished to her local post office. And once she had received our cards, she wrote us thank-you notes for the thank-you notes we had sent to her. There are still a number of Aunt Lillies in this world, but for many of us, the thought of writing a thank-you note causes anxiety and cold sweats. It needn’t. The art of writing thank-you notes is an easy skill to acquire, and I am here to share the secret formula.

I think most of us want our letters of appreciation to sound gracious and heartfelt, but let’s face it — most thank-you notes are stilted and sound insincere.

Dear Tia Esperanza,

Thank you for the nice socks.

Love,Jose

We can do better, and without tearing out our hair. We don’t even have to use the words “thank you” — some people even maintain that one ought not employ them. The basic thank-you note has six parts that will result in a decent missive of gratitude that does not sound grasping, but does come off as thoughtful.

The date

The greeting

An initial expression of gratitude that does NOT include the words “thank you”

A comment on the object or act for which one must express thanks

A final expression of gratitude

An appropriate closing

That said, I should mention that my mother once received a one-word thank-you from a somewhat pretentious friend of the family that read merely, “Magnifiqué!” But generally, a thank-you message should go something like this:

Date

Dear Aunt Lillie,

I was so pleased to receive the letter you sent in response to my thank-you note. I am always amazed at how much family history you are able to pack into only five or six pages. The story about my grandfather was very amusing, and I am so happy that you shared it with me. I send this with

Love,Ruth*

A slightly more formal example might read like this:

Stardate

Dear Mr. Kenobi,

Running into you in the desert the other day was a real delight. We should do it again soon. And I certainly was not expecting you to entrust my father’s old light saber to me. I can’t imagine a more meaningful gift. I’ve put it on the coffee table; it’s a real conversation starter.

R2 and C3PO send their regards and ask whether you will come for tea next Tuesday? Allow me to add my voice to theirs, and to say, once again, how pleased I am to have the saber. I am

Deeply grateful,Luke Skywalker

One to a good friend can be more casual:

Sometime in the Recent Past

Dear Bruce,

I just had to dash off this note to tell you how much I love the shorts. Where did you find something so trendy with that artful distressed look? With the right suspenders, I’ll be able to wear them with everything.

I’m looking forward to seeing you at dinner this weekend. Tony says to ask if the Hulk will play on our team for the volleyball game.

Thanks again for the shorts. They’re just smashing.

Love,Pepper

Remember that even if your note is short and follows a form, it can still be sincere. The point is to let the person who gave you the lurid socks or who wrote the glowing letter of recommendation for you know that you received the gift or are aware of the effort and appreciate the thought and time that was expended on your behalf. (It doesn’t matter whether you really appreciate the socks or not; while you are writing the note, you do.)

A final admonition regarding thank-you notes: unless you have a true disability that precludes holding a pen (and some of us do), thank-you notes should be written by hand, on paper, and sent through the mail. All the e-mails in the world will not take the place of a holograph missive composed in the most legible script the writer can muster. Handwriting still conveys a personal communication that nothing else can match.

So let’s practice. Take a moment and think of

Two people who have a

Relationship, and an

Object given by one to the other

For example: two guys, cousins, and an invitation:

Prehistory

Dear Noah,

Dude! You always have the best ideas for our family re-unions. A cruise sounds awesome, but the whole animal theme doesn’t work for me — my allergies to fur, dander, and hay are way too gnarly. But you have a great time and tell me about it when you get back. But I really appreciate the invite — I can always count on you to keep me afloat.

Don’t worry about me. I heard there are some killer waves coming our way, so I’ll be on my board, thinking of you stuck on that boat with the fam and critters. But, Dude, I am still, like,

Totally grateful,Lamech III

(There’s a discussion about gratitude and thank-you letters here. Do share any good notes you compose, if you are comfortable doing so.)

Here’s another way to get some practice. On page fifty of Write Back Soon!** there’s an article entitled “Three Hundred Sixty-Five Thank Yous.” It tells about John Kralik who, at a low point in his life, spent a year writing a thank-you note every day and managed to turn his life around. I’m not suggesting that if we all write a note of gratitude every day that all our problems will miraculously melt away. But doing so will probably make us much better thank-you letter writers.

So here’s what I hope will be the first of many expressions of gratitude that I make during this Month of Letters, and my last offering in this post:

29 January 2018

Dear Mary,

I never foresaw how much the Month of Letters would come to mean to me. I’m not very good at keeping up with answering letters from Letter Monthers the rest of the year, but every February I feel connected to the world in a way that sustains me through the other eleven months. The Month of Letters community is an incredible gift that you gave us all, and I am proud to help continue what you started.

I also want to let you know that your courage and honesty about your depression have made it easier for me to be upfront about mine. That you were able to ask us to help you now when you need to take care of yourself is also admirably brave and I honor you for it. You are an inspiration in so many ways, and for that I am

Profoundly grateful,Ruth

* I should be clear that Aunt Lillie was one of my favourite relatives and I genuinely treasure the several letters I have from from her containing some very interesting perspectives on family history.

** Karen Benke, Write Back Soon! (Boston: Roost Books, 2015).

Ruth Feiertag is the owner of PenKnife Writing and Editorial Services (http://www.penknife-editing.net), the Senior Editor for Regal House Publishing (https://regalhousepublishing.com), and an independent scholar who writes about Medieval and Early Modern English Literature.

Print catalogs and catalog companies have not endured the modern age of Eco, Techno or electronic media and the “have it now” generation.

“The official source for stamp enthusiasts“

The USA Philatelic is one that I enjoy! The Fall 2017 Volume featured Sharks on the cover, great themes, insightful stories and articles regarding the beautiful stamp issues and products! (See collage above) #usaphilatelic You can “have it now” with a request at USPS here: (just wait for it the mail! ) USA Philatelic Catalog

Although not a collector, I like to order the commemorative and seasonal stamps. In re-imagining the Philatelic cover, I converted it to an artvelope, or shall we say a pair of “Sharkvelopes”. #artvelope Two cut from the Shark centerfold!

Hopefully, a few of my lettermo penpals who weren’t traumatized by the 1975 Jaws film will enjoy one. Mail art is another aspect of letter writing, that is fun, creative, crafty, thrifty and a fulfilling exercise! 🙂 The artvelope also opens a new topic with the person reading your letter. Something to write back about, and perhaps include silly 1970’s movie references! #mailart #envelopes #lettermo #stamps

Stamp Increase!! Thanks to member, Heather S, for reminding us that ordering now will save you a bit. She ordered hers early! Rates Increase 1/21/2018.

Enjoy the upcoming 2018 Month of Letter Challenge! The Forums are now open for topic posting, introductions, and more Lettermo 2018 information, including the Participant Badges, Calendar, Sheet of Stamps and more!

I am so relieved and grateful. Ronda Stall and Cooksterz have stepped up to the letterbox and are making sure that LetterMo continues on through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night.

They are working on cleaning the forums of spam and getting everything ready for this February. I’ll be lurking in the background but going forward, you have new couriers. Please help them with, and thank them for, the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Fondly yours,

Mary Robinette Kowal

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This is a difficult post to write, but the time has come for me to give up the Month of Letters. It began as a way for me to disconnect from the internet and slow down. I have loved all of the people that I got to meet through it.

But over the years, the effort involved in maintaining and running the site has grown to the point that I can’t sustain it. In full and painful honesty, we’re at the point that February triggers my depression symptoms as I realize that I’m letting people down.

We’re slammed with spammers and I don’t have the ability to stop them. There are things that the site needs that I can’t provide.

So what I’d like to do, rather than just shutting it down, is to hand the Month of Letters over to another caretaker. I issued the initial challenge, yes, but it is bigger than me.

Do you want to run Month of Letters?

If you do, I’ll still pay for hosting. I can cheer from backstage. But I’m at a point where I need to let go of trying to manage the site. In 2018, I’m trying to be better about understanding my limits. Please understand and accept my apologies.

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Thanks to everyone who posted pictures of their postcards sent and received on the #lettermo tag this year! We re-shared quite a few, and these are the favorites. You can see many more on our Instagram account.

Today’s guest bloggers are LetterMo Community Members Jaynie Royal and Ruth Feiertag. Ruth and Jaynie are quintessential, complementary twin peas in the pod. While I, Jaynie, perpetually seek to refine my developmental nose—and I speak of character and plot, not day-old fish or malodorous swamp—when it comes to punctuation, I am much in need of Rutherian advice. And I, Ruth, look to Jaynie for insight on content, flow, and characterization. I keep trying to get her to impart to me her tact and diplomacy, but until then, I rely on her to remove my foot from my mouth before anyone notices it’s there. Their full bios are below.

4th February, 2017

Dear Readers,

Ruth: Some years ago, the laurel I inherited from my father turned into a tree with leaves to spare; since then, I have stopped using dried bay leaves and now rely on the supply of fresh ones that I have always to hand. The fresh leaves impart a more vibrant, brighter flavour to my culinary concoctions, one that I notice particularly in my marinara sauce. But I miss the more robust quality of the dried leaves and may buy some to use with the just-plucked foliage from my father’s tree.

Obsessed as Jaynie and I are with language, I cannot help but see how like cooking the writing process is, particularly when it comes to word choice and diction. We start with some basic content and then enhance the flavour, the significance by making judicious choices about the herbs and spices we add or the vocabulary we employ. I suppose we could even say that acquiring an extensive vocabulary is as necessary to a writer as is a wide range of pigments to a painter.

Is it my imagination, or does adding laurel leaves bring out a more triumphant note in soup than adding bay? Or does a laurel, like a rose, smell as sweet by any other word? And does it matter whether Shakespeare wrote “by any other word” or “by any other name”? Whether what Hamlet wishes would resolve itself into a dew is “ too, too sullied flesh” or “too, too solid flesh”? I would say yes, it matters, but that the different inflections have equal value and the discussion about the connotations sharpens our verbal palette.

Really, it’s all about having sufficient choices to bring out the flavours of food, the contrast between shade and light, the nuances of a text, about experimenting with diverse spices and tints and turns of phrase.

6th February, 2017

Jaynie: I do rather adore Ruth’s culinary metaphor there. Well done. A perfect analogy for the carefully crafted literary piece.

Perhaps my advice here, in regards to refining the vocabulary, is to give over your manuscript to a well-read third party with the pointed directive to examine whether said vocabulary engages; whether the reader is immersed in the narrative, spellbound by the ongoing action, enamored with vividly drawn characters. For if the vocabulary is spot on, it will not be noticed. It might occur to your reader, on some level, whilst immersed in your story, that this character or that event was indeed marvelously described, but she or he will be enthralled.

A poverty-stricken vocabulary, one that is limited in scope, can quickly become tedious and repetitive for your reader. It is not that one must learn multisyllabic words and utilize them ad nauseam; one can write beautifully with a simple, direct, precise prose—indeed, often this style is to be preferred. Acquiring a rich vocabulary, however, as Ruth has so aptly put it, stocks your herb shelf to bursting. And if you want a simple four-ingredient soup: pumpkin, chicken stock with a little ginger and salt, carefully combined, it will be delicious. There is, however, in these simple recipes, a secret of which all accomplished cooks are well aware: the ingredients themselves should be even more thoughtfully selected since each will have to carry more of the gustatory burden; I would recommend farmers-market fresh, preferably organic. In this respect, while the narrative prose might be clear and straightforward, the words themselves should be most carefully chosen and thoughtfully combined.

If you have, however, a more extensive repertoire to hand you can, should you so decide, experiment with all kinds of fusion cuisine. Perhaps you might want to delve into the layered intricacies of a freshly made Thai curry or the herbaceous brightness of Vietnamese spring rolls? Or the decadent layers of a rich chocolate-mousse cake? Okay, I’m starving. Whose idea was it to feature culinary cuisine in a vocabulary-feature anyway?

But, in all seriousness, I would have to say that the absolute best source of vocabulary enrichment comes from great works of literature. From W.E.B Du Bois to Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, to the poems of Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson, from the Great Bard to Fydor Dostoyevsky. I mention, of course, very few of the many works available to the reader of contemporary writing.

These works are rightly deemed classics because their magic is pervasive and perpetual. Subsequent generations continue to be enthralled by these literary masterpieces because the vocabulary contained therein is not only a rich repertoire of the mother tongue but because these writers wield it with such wondrous facility. Read and learn. That’s what I do.

7th February, 2017

Ruth: Jaynie, I want to pick up on your idea of “fusion cuisine” because that’s so very much what English is. While the most notable “fusion” was thrust upon the Anglo-Saxons by the Norman-French almost a thousand years ago, English has sponged up words from Hindi (shampoo), Italian (sprezzatura), Yiddish (mishegas), Arabic (candy), Spanish (renegade)… I am pleased to see that your list includes authors beyond those in the DWM (Dead White Males) Club. We can also grow our word-hoards by reading authors magazines—magazines offer us a phenomenal smorgasbord of modern eloquence.

The two-lane Miracle-Gro route to vocabulary proliferation runs through dictionaries and thesauri. Word-of-the-Day calendars offer verbal boosts in palatable doses. And language courses—try Latin or Greek—can provide the building blocks for understanding new words we encounter, even when there is not a dictionary in sight.

There are some wonderful books about words as well. Two of my favourites are both about that unparalleled compendium, The Oxford English Dictionary. The first is Ammon “I’m reading the OED so you don’t have to” Shea’s hilarious Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages; the second, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester, an intricate and compassionate portrait of the relationship between the Civil War doctor who contributed literary examples to accompany definitions and the professor who was the driving force behind the greatest lexicographical feat in history.

But I would suggest that merely reading won’t make one true friends with new verbal acquaintances. As with all deep, meaningful relationships, the way to cement the bond is to use your friends. Casually drop them into dinner conversation: “Darling, don’t prognosticate doom for your siblings just because your connection to them is tenuous.” Keep a vocabulary journal and write flash fiction based on three words culled from your collection. And write letters, lots and lots of letters.

9th February, 2017

Jaynie: I think that you make a critical point, Ruth, insofar as usage is concerned. In order to render your newly acquired vocabulary (or those marvelous words you have been hoarding for fear of sounding pretentious in conversation) fluid, smoothly integrated with the more mundane verbiage that often constitutes daily back and forth, you have to actually use it. Use it in speech and use it in prose. These words need to flow trippingly from your tongue and your pen, otherwise they are jarring to the ear or the eye; they lack the natural rhythm that attends to well-lubricated language. They do not sound authentic. And in order for your letters to successfully engage your reader, the words you use must come across as vividly authentic.

Just as a complex recipe benefits from multiple makings (I will not tell you how many times I have been disappointed by my attempts at southern-style biscuits), deliberately expanding one’s vocabulary and using these new words often affords you, the writer, a greater linguistic facility that will invest your letters with added depth and power. And rather fun to be able to bring them out at dinner parties (in conjunction with that elaborately wrought chocolate-mousse cake): “Darlings, a decadent chocolate confectionary for your post-dinner delectation!”

BUT—a word of warning here—these words must come naturally to you. You must formulate your own particular literary style. While an expanded vocabulary is indubitably a marvelous tool in the writer’s repertoire, these words, indeed all words, should be judiciously and appropriately used. How do you know if you are using them in a fluent and engaging manner? In a way that enhances your letters rather than weighing them down? Natural speech provides a good clue in this regard: if you can (and do) utilize these particular words in daily conversation, with the fluency that accompanies unpremeditated dialogue, then chances are that these words, now a natural part of your own lexicon, can be used with ease in your writing as well.

Ruth: Jaynie darling, you’re absolutely right. Familiarity and use will make new words second nature. Besides adding scintillating, sparkling new terms to one’s collection, compiling a range of options for more commonplace vocabulary can add dimension and variety to one’s discourse. So here are lists of some our favourite verbal gems and reliable workhorses:

Jaynie Royal is the author Killing the Bee King and the General Editor and Publisher of Regal House Publishing and its imprints, Fitzroy Books (for Young and New Adult literature) and Pact Press (an imprint dedicated to encouraging conversations that will help bridge the divisions that pervade our society). Jaynie is a talented cook, a proud parent, an educator, and a devoted epistolarian. She is also brilliant, lovely, possessed of wit and hope, and TOTALLY cool.

Ruth is the owner of PenKnife Writing and Editorial Services, the Senior Editor for Regal House Publishing, and an independent scholar who writes about Medieval and Early Modern English Literature. Ruth has a heart of gold and is a staunch and loyal advocate for the downtrodden wherever she may find them. She has a sharp wit, an incisive eye, and a marvelously dry sense of humor; in short, she is utterly AWESOME.